Intel P965: Mid-Range Performance Sector Roundup
by Gary Key on October 20, 2006 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3: Feature Set
The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is one of the more value priced offerings in our mid-range lineup with a street price around $145. Unlike the other boards in our roundup it does not use the Intel ICH8R which means two additional SATA ports and RAID capabilities come from the JMicron JMB363 chipset that also serves as the IDE controller. The DS3 also does not come with Firewire capability which is a mistake in our opinion.
The BIOS is feature rich and is geared towards the enthusiast with a significant amount of voltage/memory timing options provided you remember to enter Ctrl-F1 while in the BIOS setup screen. Why Gigabyte continues to force the user to remember this keystroke sequence for additional BIOS options is beyond us. This motherboard is marketed to the performance crowd so why not let us have access to these commands without the secret code?
Gigabyte also includes a full suite of utilities for the board: EasyTune5, M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker), Download Center, Xpress Install, @BIOS, Smart LAN, Smart Fan, and Virtual Dual BIOS. We found the @BIOS utility to be very handy for downloading and then updating the BIOS while in Windows. For those who are squeamish about updating their BIOS within Windows, Gigabyte has the Q-Flash utility built into the BIOS that allows updating from a floppy drive.
EasyTune5 is probably one of the most utilized utilities in the Gigabyte arsenal and allows for control of the FSB and certain voltages within Windows although a reboot is required for most voltage settings. We found the utility worked well for squeezing out those last few FSB increases but we still found ourselves tweaking the BIOS the majority of the time. The PC Health monitor provided basic readings of the system but for some odd reason our CPU temperature liked to blip under 20C when capturing our screenshots. Our actual idle temps at stock settings were 27C on this board. The Smart Fan utility allows control over the two fan headers.
Like our other boards in this roundup Gigabyte includes a dynamic overclocking capability dependent up system load or preset attributes. This capability can be located within the BIOS under the C.I.A.2 setting and is no way affiliated with the US government. The settings range from Cruise (5% increase) to Full Thrust (17% increase). We decided to see how well this motherboard performed at Full Thrust and were treated with a blank screen on reboot. After a quick CMOS clear event we backed down to the Turbo (15% increase) setting and were able to complete our benchmark testing. C.I.A.2 determined our Turbo settings would end at a final 7x308FSB providing a CPU speed of 2156MHz and our memory running at DDR2-924 with 5-5-5-15 settings. Just as predicted by C.I.A.2 an increase of over 15% in the FSB speed was realized.
| Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 | |
| Market Segment: | Mid-Range Performance |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Pentium EE, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 + ICH8 |
| Bus Speeds: | 100 to 600 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Ratios: | Auto, 2, 2.5, 3, 2.66, 3.33, 4 |
| PCIe Speeds: | Auto, 90MHz~150MHz in 1MHz Increments |
| PCI: | Fixed at 33.33MHz |
| Core Voltage: | Normal, 1.0250V to 1.6000V in 0.00625V increments, 1.80V, 2.0V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-11x in 1X increments if CPU is unlocked, downwards unlocked, Core 2 Duo |
| DRAM Voltage: | Normal, +.1V ~ +.7V in +.1V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control: | Normal, 9 DRAM Timing Options, Memory Performance Enhance Mode |
| FSB Termination Voltage: | Normal, +.1V ~ +.3V in +.1V increments |
| MCH Voltage: | Normal, +.1V ~ +.3V in +.1V increments |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 1 - PCIe X16 3 - PCIe X1 3 - PCI Slot 2.3 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - Intel ICH8 2 SATA 3Gbps Ports - (RAID 0,1,JBOD) - JMicron JMB363 |
| Onboard IDE: | 1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - JMicron JMB363 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 10 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel - 6 via Headers no firewire support |
| Onboard LAN: | Gigabit Ethernet Controller - PCI Express Interface Marvel 88E8053 |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC-883 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 4-pin EATX 12V |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x Parallel Port 1 x S/PDIF Optical 1 x S/PDIF Coaxial 1 x Serial Port 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 |
| BIOS Revision: | Award F7 |
The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is one of the more value priced offerings in our mid-range lineup with a street price around $145. Unlike the other boards in our roundup it does not use the Intel ICH8R which means two additional SATA ports and RAID capabilities come from the JMicron JMB363 chipset that also serves as the IDE controller. The DS3 also does not come with Firewire capability which is a mistake in our opinion.
The BIOS is feature rich and is geared towards the enthusiast with a significant amount of voltage/memory timing options provided you remember to enter Ctrl-F1 while in the BIOS setup screen. Why Gigabyte continues to force the user to remember this keystroke sequence for additional BIOS options is beyond us. This motherboard is marketed to the performance crowd so why not let us have access to these commands without the secret code?
Gigabyte also includes a full suite of utilities for the board: EasyTune5, M.I.T. (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker), Download Center, Xpress Install, @BIOS, Smart LAN, Smart Fan, and Virtual Dual BIOS. We found the @BIOS utility to be very handy for downloading and then updating the BIOS while in Windows. For those who are squeamish about updating their BIOS within Windows, Gigabyte has the Q-Flash utility built into the BIOS that allows updating from a floppy drive.
EasyTune5 is probably one of the most utilized utilities in the Gigabyte arsenal and allows for control of the FSB and certain voltages within Windows although a reboot is required for most voltage settings. We found the utility worked well for squeezing out those last few FSB increases but we still found ourselves tweaking the BIOS the majority of the time. The PC Health monitor provided basic readings of the system but for some odd reason our CPU temperature liked to blip under 20C when capturing our screenshots. Our actual idle temps at stock settings were 27C on this board. The Smart Fan utility allows control over the two fan headers.
Like our other boards in this roundup Gigabyte includes a dynamic overclocking capability dependent up system load or preset attributes. This capability can be located within the BIOS under the C.I.A.2 setting and is no way affiliated with the US government. The settings range from Cruise (5% increase) to Full Thrust (17% increase). We decided to see how well this motherboard performed at Full Thrust and were treated with a blank screen on reboot. After a quick CMOS clear event we backed down to the Turbo (15% increase) setting and were able to complete our benchmark testing. C.I.A.2 determined our Turbo settings would end at a final 7x308FSB providing a CPU speed of 2156MHz and our memory running at DDR2-924 with 5-5-5-15 settings. Just as predicted by C.I.A.2 an increase of over 15% in the FSB speed was realized.
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vailr - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Re:So, how about the (yet unreleased) ATI and NVidia Conroe chipset boards?
Does either chipset include PATA support?
Thanks.
Gary Key - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
They both have native support for two drives.
n7 - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Gary, always love your reviews!I read thru the whole thing, & it was a good read :)
Meticulous detail, as well great sarcastic humor as well.
I look forward to the following parts.
Sho - Friday, October 20, 2006 - link
In an earlier AnandTech article, the one about Kentsfield support, it was written that Gigabyte would bring a revision 2.0 of all of their P965 boards to the market in mid-October, including the DS3. The article does not mention whether the board tested was this new rev 2,9 or any other. Could that be clarified?And does anybody know what was changed/fixed in 2.0?
Gary Key - Friday, October 20, 2006 - link
Gigabyte has not released any further details on the revision 2 boards except for the fact they were addressing some layout issues and possible BIOS improvements. The only major change we could see them making would be going from a three phase power design on the DS3 to a five phase system as an example. The board we tested is still revision 1.Sho - Saturday, October 21, 2006 - link
Thanks!dreddly - Friday, October 20, 2006 - link
'caliper' should be caliber on AB9Pro pageGreat work on this roundup though, impressive job.
Puddyglum1 - Friday, October 20, 2006 - link
Which board? The topic of the previous page was about sound cards vs. onboard audio. Is there a missing page? Why is there a picture of the Asus heatsink and no mention of which board is the preferred of the bunch?Just some questions =)
Great article for Cost/Performance comparison.
Puddyglum1 - Friday, October 20, 2006 - link
Woah, there's a lot more there now. Thanks for the explanation.I just built a workstation for a client using the 965P-DS3, but the board was DOA. I went to a local shop and picked up a 965P-S3 instead (seeing as how the only main feature missing was the solid capacitors of the -DS3), and it performed just as well as the DS3. For $110, a GA-965P-S3 would be the best Cost/Performance of the 965P bunch, in my unresearched opinion.
JarredWalton - Friday, October 20, 2006 - link
Now you're skipping ahead to part 2! :p